Can I read Midwives' Tales : Stories of Traditional and Professional Birthing in Samoa on EtoBox?

Midwives' Tales : Stories of Traditional and Professional Birthing in Samoa by Lesley Barclay; Fulisia Aiavao; Jennifer Fenwick; Kaisarina Tooloa Papua is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Midwives' Tales : Stories of Traditional and Professional Birthing in Samoa about?

The result of a ten-year collaboration between Australian and Samoan researchers and midwives, this book compiles the first-person stories of several generations of Samoan midwives, both those who use traditional techniques for home birth and those who use Western techniques in a hospital. The voices are vivid and varied, often displaying the Samoan gift for storytelling. The overall picture of changing birthing practices is complex and sometimes tinged with ironies. As the introduction says, "These Samoan nurses and midwives did not immediately attempt to mediate new and old ways of birthing after the colonial leadership of their profession left. They themselves became cultural agents for change as they continued the role of 'colonizing' their own birth tradition and taught the fa'atosaga [Samoan for midwife] Western techniques, at the same time trying to provide a professional midwife for all women. Paradoxically they often chose a social midwife for their own births and supported or at least condoned the social midwives close to them. . . . Kaisarina, while working as the leading professional midwife in the country, and working almost totally in hospital practice herself, simult

Author

Lesley Barclay; Fulisia Aiavao; Jennifer Fenwick; Kaisarina Tooloa Papua

Publisher

Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press

Published

2005

Language

EN

ISBN

9781282452022

Subjects

Medical, Science, Health & Fitness